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Local Cognitive

Updates

Releases are published on GitHub. The release notes say what each one brings.

The app

Section titled “The app”

The app checks for a new version 10–30 seconds after it starts, then every 6 hours, and soon after the computer wakes if a check is due. It only checks; nothing downloads or installs without you.

When a new version is out:

  • a button Update to X appears in the title bar, and one system notification is shown per version;
  • Settings → About shows what’s new, and lets you check, download and Restart and update.

macOS

Section titled “macOS”

The update downloads in the background and installs when you restart. macOS accepts it only with the same Developer ID signature as the installed app, so a tampered update is refused. The app must run from Applications, not from the dmg.

Windows

Section titled “Windows”

Until the installer is code-signed, the app announces new versions and links to the release page instead of installing them: Windows could not verify an unsigned update’s publisher. Download the new installer and run it; it installs over the old version and keeps your data, models and CUDA.

The server

Section titled “The server”

Once a day the server checks for a new release and shows it in Remote with its notes and the command to install it. It installs nothing on its own.

Terminal window
sudo local-cognitive-server update

What happens:

  1. Check: the release manifest’s Ed25519 signature, the version, the download’s size and SHA-256, and the archive’s contents.
  2. Prepare: the new release is unpacked next to the running one, starts once as a self-check, and takes over the CUDA runtime.
  3. Wait: if computers have work running, the update refuses; --wait waits for it to finish instead.
  4. Back up: the service stops after finishing accepted work, and the data is backed up (models and outputs excepted; the last three backups are kept).
  5. Switch and check: current points at the new release, the service starts, and the update waits until it reports the new version and is running.
  6. Roll back on failure: if anything fails, the previous release and the backed-up data come back by themselves.

sudo local-cognitive-server rollback goes back by hand. The previous two releases stay on disk.

Versions that talk to each other

Section titled “Versions that talk to each other”

The app and the server agree on a protocol version when they connect. If one of them is too old, the app says which one to update instead of failing later.